The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for adjusting a printing speed, and particularly, to an improved method for achieving an optimum printing speed capable of realizing a quick printing by performing a print environment recognition operation in advance through driving a printer as fast as a data transmission time.
Conventionally, the printing speed of a printer system is limited because of the time needed to perform a print environment recognition operation.
One type of print environment recognition operation is a printer warm-up occurring before the actual printing. A second type of a print environment recognition operation is a printer initialization occurring before the actual printing. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,216,754 for Determining the Complexity of a Page Prior to a Print Attempt to Sathi et al analyzes the quantity, size, geometry, and location of objects on a page prior to the printing of a page. U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,302 for a Method of Transferring Recording Data to Recording Device to Kawase determines beforehand the available memory capacity of an input device before printing. I have not seen a method or apparatus that performs a print environment recognition operation in an efficient manner so that the printing operation is not slowed down.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved printing operation.
It is also an object to perform a printing operation enhancing the speed of a printer engine, by reducing a time required for recognizing a print environment of the printer engine.
It is yet another object to provide an improved method and apparatus for adjusting the printing speed.
It is also another object to provide a more efficient printing operation that efficiently determines the print environment recognition operation in printing a page of text.
To achieve these and other objects, a method for adjusting an optimum printing speed according to the present invention includes converting print data into data having a predetermined size unit; calculating the time required for transmitting the converted data to a printer according to a predetermined formula; and performing a preprocessing print for printing the received data by doing the printing environment recognition operation earlier by as much as a transmission time during the converted data is received.
Preferably, the step of performing the preprocessing print includes the steps of determining a printing amount of time; rendering the transmitted data continuously; and printing the rendered data by driving the printer engine after the printing amount of time elapses. Preferably, the predetermined formula is a time which is obtained by dividing the size value of the converted data by a transmission speed at between a host computer and the printer. Preferably, the printing amount of time is the transmission time. Preferably, the predetermined size unit is one page.